The Wanderlust gleamed, golden, in the distorted sunrise only the sea could produce. It, or she as Sebastian insisted a call the ship, was beautiful. Not only in her rich deck’s waxed surface or even the polished golden door knobs. The Wanderlust was beautiful in everything she stood for. She stood for freedom, adventure and most of all she stood for a new life. She was wonder in herself. Sebastian had painted, in large golden letters, The Wanderlust on the starboard side of the ship, and the letters were now reflecting the pink sunlight. Calloway and I had warned him that it was too dangerous, adding identification to the ship, but he did so anyway. He said it was important. That we had to have pride.
The sea was calm, and it seemed almost unfair. There should have been, I thought to myself, some drama in our departure. There was no dramatic chase, no dramatic music, and now that we were gone, no dramatic sigh of relief that we had made it out alive. If Sebastian had heard me say this he would have been furious. Didn’t I want it smoothly, he would ask, didn’t I want to get out without making a fuss?
Braust was just a black dot of smoke on the horizon. It would barely be worth mentioning in a description of the sea line, a painter would not have bothered to put it in this landscape. But, I was dwelling on it, that dot of smoke. I had spent my entire life living there, in the smog and industrialized streets. I would hear the old women in the streets talk about days of old. They would say things like it used to be better then, and things haven’t been the same since. One such voice was Mrs. Beulah Ainsley, Braust’s “village witch” and best cabbage and cod soup maker. She spoke out frequently about the New Regime and how the old king had been better. She spoke of murder and torture. She spoke of forced confessions dictator rule. One day, Mrs. Ainsley disappeared without a word.
Her disappearance prompted my decision to leave Braust. Mrs. Ainsley had fed me, clothed me, and taken care of me since I can remember. I didn’t official live with her, adopting children in Braust was a long and drawn out process, and Mrs. Ainsley took care to see that I was never brought to the attention of the Braust Public Service Bureau. Braust’s Public Service Bureau struck fear in the hearts of every freethinking citizen. It was ran by ominous Loyalists, and they made sure The Code was followed, using any form of persuasion necessary. They took Mrs. Ainsley. And they took my parents. According to Mrs. Ainsley, my parents had been famous revolutionaries, fighting off the Bureau for many years. When it finally got them, I was left with nowhere to go. Mrs. Ainsley took me in, and I was sworn to secrecy.
Now Mrs. Ainsley was gone. Gone, gone, gone the word echoed in my head. Reality had thrown its harsh knife. I had come to see Mrs. Ainsley that one horrible day, and was greeted with an empty house, ridden with signs of a hasten search. I took off, running through the crowded streets of Braust. Suddenly I was jolted backward, flung on to the cobbled street. I looked up, into the face of fate itself. Then fate spoke, it said it was sorry, and hello, its name was Sebastian. And so I met Sebastian Finn, of the prestigious Finn household, rich Loyalists who threw lavish parties. My first reaction, of course, was to run away. It was just my luck I thought, when I try to run away from the Loyalists, I run into one. As it turned out, Sebastian was running away too. He proclaimed himself and artist, and said to find true art he must flee the walls of this suppressive city. If you looked up Romanticism in the dictionary (one of few books not banned in Braust), Sebastian Finn would be the definition.
Sebastian, it turned out, was the answer to all my hopes and dreams. He was the means through which I was to leave the city. His parents owned a huge marina and certainly wouldn’t notice a ship missing within the next few weeks. We were going to commandeer a ship, and head towards the horizon. We made plans and looked at maps for three studious midnights. It was on such midnight that I asked why Braust had become such a terrible place. Sebastian told me a magnificent story, as romantics do, of bravery, honor, good versus evil, and betrayal. Basically though, the old king of Braust had been pushed from the throne by the New Regime and narrowly escaped execution and went into exile. Then I asked, innocently, why no one had gone to look for him. I was answered with silence, and then a mad grin appeared on Sebastian’s face. He jumped up, laughing. Then, pausing just before he reached door, looked at me and said, “It’s so simple!” then rushed out on to the street. He was headed to the docks and I ran after him. When I had finally caught up with him, he was facing a wall and talking to himself. As it turned out he was talking to Old Calloway, a man Sebastian was subconsciously training to be. A vivacious storyteller, Calloway was considered to be an expert on all myths and legends surrounding the New Regime’s rule. He sketched and invented his spare time, and was therefore shunned by Braust’s upper crust. After five minutes rushed conversation, Calloway was to join us.
That was last week.
We had spent the rest of that night redesigning our plans. Calloway and Sebastian had decided, in lieu of my pessimistic protests, that we were going to search for the old king and restore him to his rightful thrown. I tried to tell them that the old king was probably dead, and even if he were alive he’d be on some island we’d never find. I tried to tell them that we’d be better off just leaving to find our own island and live there until we died. But they were romantics, and they’d never listen. And so we had snuck into the marina, commandeered a ship, and sailed off into the unknown.
Now, it was today. Today, I stood in the glow of the sunrise, watching that black dot of smoke fade into distance.
Calloway popped up from below the deck. “Sebastian! Aubrey! Come here and take a look at this! I think I’ve got it, I really think I do!”
Sebastian dropped his watercolors and rushed over. I joined him seconds later. Calloway had been secretively working below deck to make something from driftwood, seaweed, and sand. Thus far, his attempts had been unsuccessful. He had constructed a… a device… of some sort. “You see,” he said pointing to the device, “the skinned fish goes through this slot here, then through...” He lost me. I never got much of an education, except from Mrs. Ainsley who never spoke much of science. Sebastian was nodding excitedly. “…and about eight hours later, you get some nice cooked fish!” he concluded.
“Uh, Calloway, erh, wouldn’t be easier to make a box out of the wood, with sand in, and burn some seaweed and cook the fish over it? I reckon it’d go a lot faster,” I said delicately, not wishing to offend our friend.
“No, no it would never work. Never work. Because of… ‘cause of the… the uh… well, its just not proper… uh… well I had better get to work then.” He popped back below deck.
Sebastian turned on me. “It was a nice device!”
“What for? Waiting eight hours for food?”
“Well, yeah. Yeah I suppose so.”
I shrugged and walked over to where Sebastian had been painting. It was a landscape portrait of the sea and coastline. I noticed that Sebastian had included Braust, and made it slightly bigger and more menacing then it really was from this distance.
A few more days went by uneventfully. The sun rose and set, the dolphins splashed in and out of our wake, and Braust grew smaller and smaller and finally disappeared. Calloway spent many industrial hours trying to get seaweed to burn and Sebastian made many more watercolors while I sat in cultured silence.
The Wanderlust gleamed, golden, in the distorted sunrise only the sea could produce. It, or she as Sebastian insisted a call the ship, was beautiful. Not only in her rich deck’s waxed surface or even the polished golden door knobs. The Wanderlust was beautiful in everything she stood for. She stood for freedom, adventure and most of all she stood for a new life. She was wonder in herself. Sebastian had painted, in large golden letters, The Wanderlust on the starboard side of the ship, and the letters were now reflecting the pink sunlight. Calloway and I had warned him that it was too dangerous, adding identification to the ship, but he did so anyway. He said it was important. That we had to have pride.
The sea was calm, and it seemed almost unfair. There should have been, I thought to myself, some drama in our departure. There was no dramatic chase, no dramatic music, and now that we were gone, no dramatic sigh of relief that we had made it out alive. If Sebastian had heard me say this he would have been furious. Didn’t I want it smoothly, he would ask, didn’t I want to get out without making a fuss?
Braust was just a black dot of smoke on the horizon. It would barely be worth mentioning in a description of the sea line, a painter would not have bothered to put it in this landscape. But, I was dwelling on it, that dot of smoke. I had spent my entire life living there, in the smog and industrialized streets. I would hear the old women in the streets talk about days of old. They would say things like it used to be better then, and things haven’t been the same since. One such voice was Mrs. Beulah Ainsley, Braust’s “village witch” and best cabbage and cod soup maker. She spoke out frequently about the New Regime and how the old king had been better. She spoke of murder and torture. She spoke of forced confessions dictator rule. One day, Mrs. Ainsley disappeared without a word.
Her disappearance prompted my decision to leave Braust. Mrs. Ainsley had fed me, clothed me, and taken care of me since I can remember. I didn’t official live with her, adopting children in Braust was a long and drawn out process, and Mrs. Ainsley took care to see that I was never brought to the attention of the Braust Public Service Bureau. Braust’s Public Service Bureau struck fear in the hearts of every freethinking citizen. It was ran by ominous Loyalists, and they made sure The Code was followed, using any form of persuasion necessary. They took Mrs. Ainsley. And they took my parents. According to Mrs. Ainsley, my parents had been famous revolutionaries, fighting off the Bureau for many years. When it finally got them, I was left with nowhere to go. Mrs. Ainsley took me in, and I was sworn to secrecy.
Now Mrs. Ainsley was gone. Gone, gone, gone the word echoed in my head. Reality had thrown its harsh knife. I had come to see Mrs. Ainsley that one horrible day, and was greeted with an empty house, ridden with signs of a hasten search. I took off, running through the crowded streets of Braust. Suddenly I was jolted backward, flung on to the cobbled street. I looked up, into the face of fate itself. Then fate spoke, it said it was sorry, and hello, its name was Sebastian. And so I met Sebastian Finn, of the prestigious Finn household, rich Loyalists who threw lavish parties. My first reaction, of course, was to run away. It was just my luck I thought, when I try to run away from the Loyalists, I run into one. As it turned out, Sebastian was running away too. He proclaimed himself and artist, and said to find true art he must flee the walls of this suppressive city. If you looked up Romanticism in the dictionary (one of few books not banned in Braust), Sebastian Finn would be the definition.
Sebastian, it turned out, was the answer to all my hopes and dreams. He was the means through which I was to leave the city. His parents owned a huge marina and certainly wouldn’t notice a ship missing within the next few weeks. We were going to commandeer a ship, and head towards the horizon. We made plans and looked at maps for three studious midnights. It was on such midnight that I asked why Braust had become such a terrible place. Sebastian told me a magnificent story, as romantics do, of bravery, honor, good versus evil, and betrayal. Basically though, the old king of Braust had been pushed from the throne by the New Regime and narrowly escaped execution and went into exile. Then I asked, innocently, why no one had gone to look for him. I was answered with silence, and then a mad grin appeared on Sebastian’s face. He jumped up, laughing. Then, pausing just before he reached door, looked at me and said, “It’s so simple!” then rushed out on to the street. He was headed to the docks and I ran after him. When I had finally caught up with him, he was facing a wall and talking to himself. As it turned out he was talking to Old Calloway, a man Sebastian was subconsciously training to be. A vivacious storyteller, Calloway was considered to be an expert on all myths and legends surrounding the New Regime’s rule. He sketched and invented his spare time, and was therefore shunned by Braust’s upper crust. After five minutes rushed conversation, Calloway was to join us.
That was last week.
We had spent the rest of that night redesigning our plans. Calloway and Sebastian had decided, in lieu of my pessimistic protests, that we were going to search for the old king and restore him to his rightful thrown. I tried to tell them that the old king was probably dead, and even if he were alive he’d be on some island we’d never find. I tried to tell them that we’d be better off just leaving to find our own island and live there until we died. But they were romantics, and they’d never listen. And so we had snuck into the marina, commandeered a ship, and sailed off into the unknown.
Now, it was today. Today, I stood in the glow of the sunrise, watching that black dot of smoke fade into distance.
Calloway popped up from below the deck. “Sebastian! Aubrey! Come here and take a look at this! I think I’ve got it, I really think I do!”
Sebastian dropped his watercolors and rushed over. I joined him seconds later. Calloway had been secretively working below deck to make something from driftwood, seaweed, and sand. Thus far, his attempts had been unsuccessful. He had constructed a… a device… of some sort. “You see,” he said pointing to the device, “the skinned fish goes through this slot here, then through...” He lost me. I never got much of an education, except from Mrs. Ainsley who never spoke much of science. Sebastian was nodding excitedly. “…and about eight hours later, you get some nice cooked fish!” he concluded.
“Uh, Calloway, erh, wouldn’t be easier to make a box out of the wood, with sand in, and burn some seaweed and cook the fish over it? I reckon it’d go a lot faster,” I said delicately, not wishing to offend our friend.
“No, no it would never work. Never work. Because of… ‘cause of the… the uh… well, its just not proper… uh… well I had better get to work then.” He popped back below deck.
Sebastian turned on me. “It was a nice device!”
“What for? Waiting eight hours for food?”
“Well, yeah. Yeah I suppose so.”
I shrugged and walked over to where Sebastian had been painting. It was a landscape portrait of the sea and coastline. I noticed that Sebastian had included Braust, and made it slightly bigger and more menacing then it really was from this distance.
A few more days went by uneventfully. The sun rose and set, the dolphins splashed in and out of our wake, and Braust grew smaller and smaller and finally disappeared. Calloway spent many industrial hours trying to get seaweed to burn and Sebastian made many more watercolors while I sat in cultured silence.